Nor’easter

We’re having a nor’easter this weekend, here in the extremely eastern part of the American West. I had the grumpy-old-man thought that we didn’t have nearly as many nor’easters when I was growing up, grumble, grumble, aaarr, get off my lawn, you kids. So I went and checked, and oddly there’s some truth to the thought. From Google’s quite wonderful Ngram viewer, mentions of the word “nor’easter” from 1800 to 2008:

Meanwhile, the New York Times mentions “nor’easter” 254 times from 1851-1980, but 272 timessince 1980. The word is being used more, though whether that means those kind of storms are more frequent? Unclear.

[UPDATE: A kind reader points out that a number of the more modern hits may come from the 1991 publication of Sebastian Junger’s book A Perfect Storm, which uses “nor’easter” in its book description.]

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11 comments

You might look at the graph of ECWS (East Coast Winter Storms = Nor’easters) on this page from the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell. Hard to say anyhting without knowing what period “when I was growing up” refers to.

“Nor’easter” is certainly being used much more (by the media) here in Boston. The oddity is that that’s not how we pronounce the word “nawtheasta.” TV weather coverage here has been unduly influenced by California, where any weather at all is a disaster (if it rains there are mudslides, etc, etc.) but I don’t think that’s at work in this instance.

If I were to guess, I would imagine that part of the reason it’s being referred to as such more often now is the term went from being perceived as a “hickish” one used by sailors to being perceived as “authentic.” I’ve no evidence for that though.

The other part of the reason was alluded to by Mr Punch: TV newscasters love dramatic weather, and “big storm” isn’t as exciting as a special kind of storm with its own name, like a “typhoon” or “hurricane.” Calling it a Nor’easter fulfills that requirement nicely, and I suspect the increasing use from TV bled over to popular usage. However, I’ve no evidence for that either.